MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. 13 



year a letter from Dr. Burmeister to Professor Peters * is published 

 concerning the eared seals of the coast of the La Plata States. In this 

 letter Dr. Burmeister restates his opinion | that only two species of 

 these animals exist on the east coast of South America, one of which he 

 regards as the Olaria leonina, and the other as the Otaria falklandica of 

 Peters's first essay. Of the first of these he had examined a number of 

 specimens, which he describes somewhat in detail, and remarks espe- 

 cially upon the great variations presented by different specimens in con- 

 sequence of differences in age, and also upon the great amount of purely 

 individual variation they present.. He is consequently led to believe 

 that the species described by Professor Peters in his first essay as 0. 

 jubata, 0. Byronia, 0. leonina, and 0. Godeffroyi, form but a single spe- 

 cies. These several nominal species he regards as based merely upon 

 individual differences, and liot constituting even " permanent races or 

 varieties." In the statement of this opinion he was anticipated by Dr. 

 Gray, who, as previously stated, one month earlier referred not only 

 these, but also the 0. Ulloce of Peters, to the 0. jubata. To the 

 Otaria falklandica of Shaw Dr. Burmeister also refers the 0. nigre- 

 scens Gray and the 0. Philippii Peters, as it seems to me with evident 

 propriety. This short article contains highly important information 

 respecting the South American eared seals. $ 



In the following month Captain C. C. Abbott § communicated to the 

 London Zoological Society some interesting notes on the haunts, habits, 

 and external features of Otaria jubata and Arctocephalus falklandicus, 

 Among other things, he remarks that, in the hundreds of skins of the 

 former (0. jubata) lie had seen, he " never saw on any of them any- 

 thing approaching fur." Captain Abbott's notes are the more valuable 

 from the fact that he has deposited skulls of both these species in the 



* Monatsb. d. k. P. Akad. Wissensch. z Berlin, 1S68, pp. 180-1S2. The same ac- 

 count is substantially given in the Anal. Mus. Buen. Ayr. 1S68, p. 303; Act. Soc. 

 Paleont., p. xxxix, and Zeitschr. ges. Naturw., XXXI, pp. 294-301. 



t See Ann. and Mag. Nut. Ili-t., 3d Series, Vol. XVIH, p. 99, 1866. 



I It is perhaps but proper to state in this connection that the specimens referred to by 

 Dr. Burmeister in the above-mentioned paper were collected by Dr. G. A. Maack at Cabo 

 Corricntes, near the southern extremity of Buenos Ayres (lat. 38° S.) They are the 

 specimens referred to by Dr. Maack in his paper in " Der Zoologische Garten" (Jan. 

 1870), and in his notes to the present paper. 



§ " On the Seals of the Falkland Islands," by Captain C. C. Abbott. Communicated, 

 with notes by P. L. Sclater, M. D., etc., Proc. Lond. Zobl. Soc. 1868, pp. 189-182, March, 

 1868. 



